What if — whoosh, right now, with no explanation — a number of us simply vanished? Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside down? That's what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out.

Free PDF Download Books by Tom Perrotta. A New York Times Notable Book for 2011 A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book for 2011 The New York Times bestseller now in.

Because nothing has been the same since it happened — not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children. Kevin Garvey, Mapleton's new mayor, wants to speed up the healing process, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized community. Kevin's own family has fallen apart in the wake of the disaster: his wife, Laurie, has left to join the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence; his son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a sketchy prophet named Holy Wayne. Only Kevin's teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she's definitely not the sweet 'A' student she used to be. Kevin wants to help her, but he's distracted by his growing relationship with Nora Durst, a woman who lost her entire family on October 14th and is still reeling from the tragedy, even as she struggles to move beyond it and make a new start. With heart, intelligence and a rare ability to illuminate the struggles inherent in ordinary lives, Tom Perrotta has written a startling, thought-provoking novel about love, connection and loss. Tom Perrotta, I don't know.

Your characters always start out so intriguing at the beginning of your books, but then you throw too much weird superfluous stuff into the mix. Couldn't you have focused a little more adroitly on two or three things, instead of the five or six lives you thought worthy of documentation? Couldn't we have done away with the seemingly tacked-on Christine/Tom/baby/Holy Wayne business and maybe had a little more about with the cult members killing each other, since one plotline was pretty spooky and the other kind of boring? It's an interesting concept to look at the people left behind after a supposed rapture has taken place, but true to form, everyone runs out of steam by the end of the book and I run out of interest. And Nora - my god, I went from being so sympathetic to Nora and wanting to give her a big hug to wanting to absolutely strangle her. Millions of people vanish in the blink of an eye leaving everyone left on Earth feeling like God just told them, “It’s not you, it’s me.” It’s been three years since the Sudden Departure, and the mayor of Mapleton, Kevin Garvey, is trying to get the town back to a feeling of normalcy.

However, Kevin’s family was profoundly impacted by the disappearances. His wife Laurie has left him to join a cult of white-clad chain smokers called the Guilty Remnant who silently stalk people while son Tom dropped out of college to follow a man called Holy Wayne who offers hugs as comfort. Kevin is left with his teenage daughter Jill and her best friend who has moved in with them to get away from the creepy stepfather she was left with when her mom went poof.

The girls are blowing off class to get drunk and high at parties that seem more depressing than fun. Another key figure in Mapleton is Nora Durst whose husband and two children vanished, and she’s been made a reluctant symbol of the mass loss. While there are no definite answers as to what exactly happened to the missing people; the implication is that most of them believe deep down that this was a religious judgment of some kind. However, while it seems to fit the template of the Christian Rapture, people of all faiths from all over the world were taken while some hard core believers were not, and those who vanished were seemingly just as flawed in their lives as those who remain.

So those left behind walk around feeling like they were judged and found wanting. Even worse is that since they don’t know what the criteria was, there’s no way to know why they didn't make the cut. The real bitch of this is because these people have realized that the biggest event in human history occurred, and they were left out of it. Now they’re supposed to.what? Study for a test? Nuvve Nuvve Telugu Movie Songs Free Download Doregama on this page. Start a softball league? There’s an unspoken belief among them that the real story is taking place with the people who departed, and the ones left are just a minor footnote at best.

That’s the creepy vibe that haunts the book and makes the idea really work. There aren’t any huge apocalyptic battles to fight or horrors to endure, just that feeling that they’ve been abandoned and not knowing how to react to it. Can any of them find a reason to go on? Is it even worth trying? I read this after seeing the TV series on HBO which I found disturbing on a lot of levels.

While the basic plot and most of the characters are the same, the show seems to be hinting that there is still something looming, that this was just the first act which makes sense since most of the book's plot was used in the first season so it needs more story to tell. That gives the show a different spin because there’s more rage and craziness while the book is more about quiet despair. I wasn't disappointed AT ALL!!!!! After enjoying. 'Commonwealth', by Ann Patchett recently, I wanted another contemporary type novel involving community- social graces/human dealings. This fit the bill: families falling apart.relationships.struggles.tragedy.emotional drama.style & tack. I wasn't too concerned about 'context' of Tom Perrotta's novel 'The Leftovers', because his 'content' was sooooo friggin-gripping-engaging.

I was aware of a bigger story going on throughout this novel. Citizens in Mapleton were mystified over lost family members, friends, lovers, and neighbors. Almost half of the world's population seems to have vanished in the Rapture. There doesn't seem to be any logical reason either for who vanished - and who didn't. As the reader', it seems to me, that I had a choice - I could spend my energy trying to figure out 'the logic'.to the plot, (maybe the end of the book would even validate my efforts with a satisfying conclusion).or.

Enjoy the 'ride' itself. I chose to enjoy the ride. Tom Perrotta's ride was entertaining.

His storytelling was a 'kick-of-fun'.( messy) I haven't much in the way of anything intellectual to say about the religious believers or non believers.( I pretty much knew how I felt on issues -so my own faith remained the same). I simply LOVE THE GRITTY DETAILS.the flawed characters.and the dialogue!

I loved the storytelling - of characters Kevin Garvey, - his wife Laurie, his son Tom, daughter Jill, Aimee. ( Jill's friend), Holy Wayne, Nora Durst.etc.

There are some funny ( shaking your head), scenes. A LITTLE EXCERPT.( background >Aimee is Jill's friend. They are both in High School. Jill's mother left to join a cult-called the 'Guilty Remnant'.

Aimee has been staying at Jill's house - about 3 months so far. She says she can't go home. Kevin, Jill's dad.has very little parental control). EXCERPT: Jill and Aimee headed out right after dinner, cheerfully informing Kevin, that they didn't know where they are going, what they were doing, who they would be with, or when they might be home. 'It's a school night,' Kevin reminded them, not bothering to add, as he sometimes did that it was odd going nowhere and doing nothing could take up so much time.

Get International Drivers License Toronto more. The joke just didn't seem that funny anymore. 'Why don't you try to stay sober for once? See what it's like to wake up in the morning with a clear head'. The girls nodded earnestly, assuring him that they had every intention of heeding this excellent advice. 'And be careful,' he continued. There are a lot of freaks out there'. Aimee grunted knowingly, as if to say that no one needed to tell her about freaks.

She was wearing kneesocks and a short cheerleader skirt – – light blue, not the maroon and gold of Mapleton High--and deployed her usual unsuitable arsenal of cosmetics. 'We'll be careful,' she promised. Jill roll her eyes, unimpressed by her friends good-girl act. 'You're the biggest freak of all', she told Aimee. Then to Kevin, she added, 'She's the one people need to watch out for.' Aimee protested, but it was hard to take her seriously, given that she looked less like an innocent schoolgirl and a stripper halfheartedly pretending to be one.

Jill gave the opposite impression – – a scrawny child playing dress-up – – in her cuffed jeans and the oversized suede coat she'd borrowed from her mother's closet. Kevin experienced the usual mixed feelings seeing them together: a vague sadness for his daughter, who was so clearly the sidekick in this duo, but also a kind of relief rooted in the thought--or at least the hope – –that her unprepossessing appearance might function as a form of protective camouflage out in the world'. I LIKE THIS NOVEL!!! *A few historical events that REALLY happened on the day Oct.

14th.530: Discorus ends his reign as Catholic anti-Pope.1492: Columbus Leaves San Salvador; arrives in Santa Maria of Concepcion (Bahamas).1884: George Eastman patents paper-strip photographic film ( Kodak Company).1905: NY Giants beats Phila A's 4 games to 1 in 2nd World Series.1926: AA Milne's book 'Winnie the Pooh' released.1957: Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first Canadian monarch to open the Parliament of Canada with the speech from the Throne.1960: Peace Corps 1st suggested by JFK.1964: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., announced as winner of the Nobel peace prize.1979: NBC premiere of US TV adaption of Helen Keller's life story 'The Miracle Worker'.1986: Elie Wiesel wins Nobel Peace Prize. This is quite the literary year for ordinary families becoming enmeshed in extraordinary, indeed, catastrophic, situations.

Erik Larson, in The Garden of the Beast, portrays an all-American family at the cusp of the horrendous Hitler years. And now Tom Perrotta one-ups him by introducing the Garveysa suburban family who was left behind in the aftermath of a Rapture-like event. To his credit, Tom Perrotta drinks no Kool-aid. Before the event occurs, one character says this about the Rapture: “It felt like religious kitsch, as tacky as a black velvet painting, the kind of fantasy that appealed to people who ate too much fried food, spanked their kids, and had no problem with the theory that their loving God invented AIDS to punish the gays.” Yet suddenly – whoosh! – millions of people simply vanish, including John Mellencamp and J.Lo, Shaq and Adam Sandler Miss Texas and Greta Van Susteren, Vladmir Putin and the Pope. There seems to rhyme or reason as to who disappears. What has happened?

No one knows and Tom Perrotta doesn’t even speculate. He wisely leaves it to the imagination of the reader. His focus is not on the “big event”, but rather how those who remain find the will to survive afterward. Some of them – Laurie Garvey, the mother, for example – join Guilty Remnant, a ragtag group that dress in white, continually smoke cancer sticks, and “stand before you as living reminders of God’s awesome power.” Others follow a self-proclaimed messiah, Holy Wayne, who promises to “take on their pain.” And the majority just struggles by – trying to find some meaning in college classes, council meetings, community dances. They try to move forward while grieving the departed and getting by in a world where consumerism, politics, conventional religion, and mindless entertainment have lost their meaning. Kevin Garvey – the father and also the mayor – thinks, “He’d seen this process before: It didn’t matter what happened in the world – genocidal wars, natural disasters, unspeakable crimes, mass disappearances, whatever – eventually people got tired of brooding about it. Time moved on, seasons changed, individuals withdrew into their private lives, turned their faces toward the sun.

On balance, it was a good thing.” It’s an ambitious theme that Tom Perrotta takes on – how diminished we are when something vital is being subtracted from our lives, but how we somehow put one foot in front of the other. Perhaps a little too ambitious.

The grandness of the apocalyptic event is always lurking in the background, making the players who strut and fret their last hours on stage seem rather ordinary. It seemed to me that the random mystery of a devastating event would have created a universal clamor to find out why; otherwise, how to go on? Tom Perrotta is an engaging writer but at the end of the day, I need to know more about “the end of the day.”.

SHORT REVIEW: What Conan the Barbarian was to High Fantasy, The Leftovers is to Mid-Life Crisis Fantasy. No, that's too kind. SHORT REVIEW #2: A book so OK it hurts. ANOTHER SHORTY: I liked this better the first time, when it was called American Beauty. LONG REVIEW: Reading this book was like heading down a playground slide made of glass.

It starts off fun, but soon the smooth, featureless texture is burning your skin and all you can see is the cold, rocky ground waiting for you at the end. And then you hit the rocky ground and it is worse than you imagined. Speaking of bad comparisons, The Rapture, the author claims, is a metaphor for dealing with grief and loss. Yet, no one in this book deals with grief or loss in any positive fashion.

If this was meant to be a strictly humorous book, the multiple negative endings might have wrapped up as punch lines to their various character arcs. However, as the book runs out of irony somewhere at the half way point, the conclusion to the novel is about as downbeat as they come. The real irony is that this well told tale of mediocrity in the face of extraordinary change never becomes more than a mediocre reflection of itself. Have you ever read one of those books where it feels like the middle part of a trilogy, like all the action happened just before the first page and then kicks into gear right on the last page? I guess it doesn't matter if you've read one like that or not. That little description makes sense enough, right? Okay, how about this: When I get a pizza, the first slice is awesome.

Because I was so hungry and anticipating it. And then you get into a cycle of diminishing returns about three slices in. Then it just becomes another food, what you're eating for that meal and nothing more. But THEN, you have the LEFTOVERS (haha!) the next day, and they are awesome again. The bookends of pizza are awesome, but the middle is kind of lame.

Nothing really happens, and it's just an unnecessary way of getting you from the beginning of the pizza to the end. A smarter man would eat a few slices on day one, and then a second set the next day, after which the pizza could go out. A smarter man would have also read the setup in this book, then skipped to the end to see what all happened without slogging through a lot of.I don't know what.

What's so weird about this book is that other than the setup, a large portion of the population mysteriously disappearing all at the same time, there's almost nothing really remarkable about what happens. It's all kind of mundane.

It's realistic. Well, except for the rising up of a cult of people who don't talk (except when they do) and smoke all the time (except when they don't) and are pretty much harmless (except when they aren't). Plus, nobody mentions the benefits. -Shorter lines everywhere. -Less traffic. -Free day at the zoo becomes tolerable again.

Anyway, if you're considering this book, I'd say reconsider. It's fine overall, but you can find what you're looking for somewhere else that'll be preferable, whether it's suburban drama, attempting to put a shape to loss, or a miracle baby.